Books to look for

• Traces of Guilt, Neil Barrett
• Write Great Code, Randall Hyde
• Developing Java Software, Russel Winder & Graham Roberts
• The Improving State of the World, Indur Goklany

• Loopholes of the Rich, Diane Kennedy
• The Die Broke Complete Book of Money, Stephen Pollan
• The Road to Wealth, Suze Orman
• Don't Mess with My Money, Ken Dolan, Daria Dolan

• Them, Jon Ronson
• The Book of Heroic Failures, Stephen Pile

• Dinesh D'Souza

• National Geographic magazines

• Against a Dark Background, Iain M. Banks
• The Jennifer Morgue, Charles Stross

Also, find a wiki dedicated to discussing hard science fiction.